Motion and Open/Close Sensors Based Solutions for Smarthomes

My topic fits into the world of intelligent homes, domotics, where was an already built radio network, with many individual nodes, which were controlled by one central network element. The nodes provide mostly comfort functionalities that can be handy in everyday usage, like lamp switching, reading sensor information, controlling small electric motors.

On the other hand, home security is also a matter of great concern. My previous project was creating an alarm system, which I built independently from this radio network, based on microcontrollers, and wired communication.

The main goal of my thesis, is to build the two networks together, so this centralization would allow easier usage, controlling and maintenance. This also means that the two network can complement each other, providing more functionalities, like controlling lamp switches by the movement sensors, or adding wireless window opening sensors.

The greatest part of my work was the transformation of the control center. I had to remodel the control of the alarm system, and move it from a simple, real-time, microcontroller platform, into a program code, which run on a complex hardware, with operating system, different input-output handling, multiple threads, and also responsible for other functionalities. And naturally, I had to create new network nodes, that could be used for the alarm system.

I believe that home automation is a topic that could get closer to average users, and a simple and low cost system, like this, could be affordable and useful for many people in their everyday life.